Kent Roosevelt's Blackmon excels at Austintown Fitch District

The Rough Riders made that clear at Wednesday's Division I Austintown Fitch District meet.

Few ran faster than junior Kelvon Blackmon, as he placed in the top four in three different preliminary events.

He placed fourth in the 200-meter dash, third in the 100-meter and second in the 400-meter. He also participated on Roosevelt's 4x400 relay that placed second in the preliminary round.

Blackmon ran his 100-meter dash in 11.15 seconds, setting up a potentially spell-binding final Friday. In Wednesday's preliminary run, Blackmon, Warren G. Harding's Theran Hargrove and Austintown-Fitch's Ralph Fitzgerald all finished within a hundredth of a second of each other for the top three spots.

The Rough Riders were equally successful in the 400-meter dash, as Blackmon placed second with his time of 51.54 and Ryan Grant placed fifth with his time of 52.07, both within a second of first place as they head into the Friday finals.

While Blackmon will likely pick up plenty of points for the Rough Riders on Friday, Cole McDougal already picked up eight with his second-place finish in the pole vault.

On the girls side, Roosevelt's Rajah Boykin ran a highlight-reel 100-meter dash. The senior nipped Solon's Allison Vason by one-hundreth of a second to finish second in the preliminary run.

The Greenmen girls had an equally successful day at Austintown Fitch, leading with 20 points after three events.

Eight of those points came from their 4x800 relay, with Shelby Adler, Marissa Sesny, Olivia Grohe and Samantha Grohe placing second with their time of 9:54.93. Eight more came from high jumper Leah Angelo, who placed second with her jump of 5-2.

Another four came from Chayanne Conley in the shot, as she finished fifth with a heave of 36-1 3/4. She finished a couple spots behind Roosevelt's Miranda Bowser, who notched a throw of 36-9 1/2, good for third.

The Greenmen will also have two girls in the 1600-meter final, after Katy Fellenstein and Olivia Grohe placed sixth and eight, respectively, in the preliminary bout. In the 400-meter dash, Lexie Mehallis has a solid shot at advancing to regionals, after placing fifth in qualifying with her time of 1:03.16.

On the boys side, Zach Gerber appeared to be in good shape, after finishing third in the 110-meter hurdles preliminary with his time of 14.92 seconds. Brandon Howard capped a successful day for the Greenmen on the hurdles, placing fifth in the 300-meter preliminary round with his time of 40.85.

Aurora junior Robby Lamport made the finals in the 400-meter dash by the slimmest of margins, taking eighth by .14 of a second.